Noah’s Ark: Beyond Flannelgraph

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Recently, I’ve had the opportunity to give our Noah’s Ark: Beyond Flannelgraph presentation to two groups of young people: a home school co-op and a local church youth group [United Gospel Mission, Charleston, WV]. It’s always exciting to give people – especially young people who’ve never heard this information before! – the truth of Biblical history. We’re honored to be able to show others the feasibility of the Ark as described in the Bible and demonstrate that there is reasonable evidence for the reliability of God’s revealed Word!

Kids and teens have lots of questions. Some of the questions they’ve asked me include:

• Were there shArks on the Ark?
• Were dinosaurs on the Ark?
• How could dinosaurs fit on the Ark?
• Why didn’t all of the lions and tigers and T-rexes [oh my!] eat everybody on the Ark?
• How many people were on board the Ark?

Their questions are relentless and they aren’t at all afraid to ask. A lot of times the Question & Answer session after the presentation feels more like an Inquisition!

But you know what? They deserve to be answered. They deserve to know that they can trust the Bible from cover to cover. When they discover that they can trust what the Bible says about Genesis, the most attacked and questioned book of God’s inerrant Word, then they know they can trust the Bible in anything it says, like the Gospel.

Too often, we avoid the tough questions. With the best of intentions we give our children disconnected Bible stories with cute moral lessons and Biblically inaccurate coloring pages. All the while, public schools are giving them history and science – with a big dose of evolution and millions of years! Many of our children grow to be adults who reject the Bible because they are comparing Sunday School stories to science class textbooks. They remember the happy, singing, mostly crowded bathtub toy of an Ark they were shown in Sunday School and it is this pervasively inaccurate picture of Noah’s Ark that they compare with the much more scientific sounding evolutionary fairy tale. If they’d only been given an image of the real Ark as described in the Bible! Many also reject the Bible because they were never given answers to their questions in church. So they go answers elsewhere from people who painted the Bible as a moralizing pre-scientific myth. It is high time we armed our children with a reasonable faith. It’s time we began answering their questions. Don’t be afraid or worried; God can handle the questions.

Incidentally, the answers to those five questions about the Ark that we gave you at the beginning of this newsletter can be found at DefendingGenesis.org. Just look for the new Noah’s Ark: Beyond Flannelgraph link at the top of our homepage.

How We Got Here

I also wanted to tell you about one of my newer presentations: How We Got Here… and Why It Matters. This one is based on my argument for a Biblical Creator from a debate with an atheist named unTheist on BlogTalkRadio. How We Got Here contrasts the evidence for design in cosmology, astronomy, geology, information science and biology with the dearth of support for evolution in these fields to show that Biblical 6-day Creation and Catastrophism really is the model that most consistently and comprehensively explains the world we observe around us.

A full list of presentations with brief descriptions can be found at DefendingGenesis.org in the About Us section.

Past Articles on Defending Genesis.org

And just in case you missed anything lately, there have been a lot of great articles on the site lately, including our take on the Mayan “Doomsday” Calendar, evidence for a 6 day Creation, whether Creationism is too divisive, whether much or anything depends on evolution and much more. See all of our past month’s articles  in the Archives.

Continue to pray that God will give us wisdom, creativity ad opportunities!

*Rev Tony Breeden

aka Sirius Knott

@ CreationLetter.com

 

*Join the Creation Sunday Network at http://creationsunday.ning.com & don’t forget to sign the Creation Letter at http://creationletter.com affirming a Biblical 6-day Creation and a worldwide Noachim Flood! 

A lot of people have serious reservations as to whether the Ark Noah built was big enough to hold all of the animals God sent him to save from the world-wide Flood. This is largely the fault of an all-too-common image of a cute, little bathtub toy Ark over-stuffed with adorable animals, often with a pair of giraffes sticking out of the top. This well-intended Sunday School image stays with us as adults. The Bible gives a much different picture.

Genesis 6:13-22 states that God told Noah that He would send a Flood “to destroy all flesh,wherein is the breath.” He told Noah that he was to “Make thee an ark of gopher wood; rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within andwithout with pitch… The length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits, the breadth of it fifty cubits, and the height of it thirty cubits. A window shalt thou make to the ark, and in a cubit shalt thou finish it above; and the door of the ark shalt thou set in the side thereof; with lower, second, and third stories shalt thou make it.” He was to bring his wife, his son’s and their wives and two of every creature, male and female, “after their kind.” He was also to take food for himself and the animals.

In his book, Noah’s Ark: A Feasibility Study, John Woodmorappe has offered that only about 16,000 animals would have been needed to fulfill God’s command to bring in two [or seven of the “clean” animals] of every land-dwelling, air-breathing animal, creeping thing and winged creatures. Using a conservative short cubit of 18 inches, Dr. Woodmorappe believes that “less than half of the cumulative area of the Ark’s three decks need to have been occupied by the animals and their enclosures.” [p.16] In today’s measurements, the Ark would be 450 feet long, 75 feet wide and 45 feet high which means that it was big enough to contain 522 standard US railroad stock cars! In fact, the Ark has the same proportions as a modern cargo ship. A 1993 Korean study headed by Dr. Seon Won Hong found no fault with the Ark’s dimensions. Such a vessel would have been seaworthy and able to handle waves as high as 100 feet. God’s blueprints were more than adequate!

Interestingly, the Hebrew word for Ark (tebah) is used only one other time in the Bible, as the name of the basket that carried baby Moses down the Nile. Some scholars think tebah is more accurately translated “lifeboat.” The Ark was certainly the only lifeboat available to survive the judgment of the Flood. This is a picture of Christ, our lifeboat from the judgment of sin. As there was only one door on the Ark, Christ is the only Way by which men can be saved from the judgment to come! [John 10:9; 14:6; Acts 4:12] Yet Jesus is able to save us to the uttermost, as sufficiently and reliably as the biblical Ark [Heb 7:25].

For some people, the historical Ark and a worldwide Flood are stumbling blocks to accepting the Gospel. They have questions that have never been answered by the church; so their questions have been answered by those who dismiss the Bible as moralizing prescientific myth rather than as God’s revealed Word.

That’s why we’ve launched our new Noah’s Ark: Beyond Flannelgraph page to answer actual questions that we’ve been asked when we give our presentation of the same name.

Below are a few starter questions. The first one’s my favorite!

• Were shArks on the Ark?
• Were dinosaurs on the Ark?
• How could dinosaurs fit on the Ark?
• Why didn’t all of the Lions & Tigers & T-rexes [oh my!] eat everyone on the Ark?
• How did they feed all of the animals Noah brought onto the Ark?
• How many people were on the Ark?

If you have other questions about Noah’s Ark and the historical worldwide Flood, please submit a comment on our new Noah’s Ark: Beyond Flannelgraph page and we’ll research your question.

-Sirius Knott

It is COMPLETELY WRONG to say that I think atheists or any other non-Christians would agree with me if they would just open up their eyes and see reason.  I do not believe reason could infect someone [profoundly affect someone] so as to compel them to see my position as truth.

 

I don’t think that at all. It would be equally inaccurate to state that because I have found reasonable evidences for my Christian orthodox faith that I feel I have proven God’s existence. It would be equally misrepresentative to say that I think I’ve proven Christianity. I can’t prove that Christ Jesus rose from the dead, but I do think that I have found a reasonable weight of evidences to suggest that He did. Furthermore, I find it more reasonable to conclude [based on, in brief, the consistently vindicated historical and archaeological accuracy of the Biblical record, the fulfillment of Bible prophecy, the credibility of the Gospel accounts, the agreement of extra-Biblical sources on the events of Christ's trial, crucifixion under Pontius Pilate and the apostolic church's conviction that Jesus had in fact risen again and were willing to die for this conviction] that Jesus did in fact live, die by crucifixion under Pontius Pilate, and rise again as promised than to believe to the contrary. It cannot be understated that this event, this resurrection, is the lynchpin of Christendom. It is the one belief upon which the entire rest of our doctrine and faith depend.

 

I’ve elaborated on the evidence for the resurrection and related issues here:

http://siriusknotts.wordpress.com/2008/02/06/resurrection-apologetics/

You see, the issue isn’t proof. The applications of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle and the headache of epistemology aside, it’s really impossible to prove anything with absolute certainty.

 

Even the scientific method has its limitations:

I sent the following in an email to the Home Depot’s Public Relation’s department. They have yet to respond.

I hope those who value freedom of religious expression will join me in boycotting Home Depot for what I feel is a clear case of religious discrimination:

It has come to my attention that you fired an employee for wearing an American flag button which stated “One nation under God, indivisible,” on the grounds that you have, to quote your man Craig Fishel, “a blanket policy, which is long-standing and well-communicated to our associates, that only company-provided pins and badges can be worn on our aprons” and that “This associate chose to wear a button that expressed his religious beliefs.” I want to tell you why appealing to this technicality won’t exonerate you.

 

We all know this is beside the point. Mr. Kevin Trevor had been weasring this button on his apron for an entire year. It appears it only became an issue when he began bringing his Bible to work and having the audacity to read it on his lunch.  That this appears to be a case of religious discrimination appears pretty well undeniable.

 

To make matters worse you have this stated Values policy [ http://corporate.homedepot.com/wps/portal/!ut/p/c1/04_SB8K8xLLM9MSSzPy8xBz9CP0os3gDdwNHH0sfE3M3AzMPJ8MAV0sDKADKR2LKmxrD5fHr9vPIz03VL8iNKAcAodaFaQ!!/dl2/d1/L2dJQSEvUUt3QS9ZQnB3LzZfMEcwQUw5MTU1RjBVSEExR0JUMzAwMDAwMDA!/]which you’re conveniently ignoring in order to justify this firing.

 

Your 3rd statement on that list states: “Doing the right thing:
We exercise good judgment by “doing the right thing” instead of just “doing things right.” We strive to understand the impact of our decisions, and we accept responsibility for our actions.” src: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_god_button_home_depot

 

Well, you’re not doing the right thing here. You’re just covering your own corporate butt. The right thing would been to take into account that this button wasn’t a religious statement that anyone would take offense to. That line is from the Pledge of Allegiance to the US flag and is as USAmerican as mom and apple pie. If you were being consistent with enforcing this sort of sad misotheistic policy you wouldn’t accept US currency either with its religious expression of “In God We Trust.” Again, if the fellow hadn’t brought his Bible to work, you would likely have [and apparent did for up to a year] regarded it as simply an expression of his patriotism. 

 

Your final values statement reads: “Respect for all people:
In order to remain successful, our associates must work in an environment of mutual respect, free of discrimination and harassment where each associate is regarded as a part of The Home Depot team.” It’s clear that respect for all people in your view doesn’t include those who believe in God; after all, we wouldn’t want to offend the teensy minority that don’t believe in God.

Since I do believe in God and I abhor anti-religious discrimination, I will be strongly discouraging folks from shopping at Home Depot this holiday season.

 

Good day and you owe that man an apology.

–Sirius Knott

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Check out this Chicago Tribune article as well: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/wjw-news-god-button,0,2808898.story

I recently came across a post calledWhat is “evolutionary theology”? The author asked a series of questions concerning the implications for theology if evolution were true. Below are his questions and my answers. The athor, whom I found to be fair and generous, is asking the right questions. I hope he comes to the right conclusions.

• What is the biological definition of “life”, and what implications does that have for an understanding of the “soul”?

My answer: The biological definition of life is hotly contested [though I feel compelled to mention Dr Werner Gitt's observation: "The common factor present in all living organisms, from bacteria to man, is the information contained in all their cells."]; however, the Bible makes distinctions between plant ["green things"] and animal life ["nephesh"], which makes sense if you think aboout it. Dead flowers bother us a whole lot less than a dead carcass on our living room table!

• If death is a necessary part of the evolutionary process, how do we imagine the role of death in God’s “creative process”?

My answer: You’re presuming both the truth of evolution and that God would actually use such a process [which i realize is the entire point of your post]. The first part of your postulate is partially incorrect. Death isn’t really a part of evolution; that is, it’s not part of the mechanism, though it’s present in the process. To wit, molecules-to-man evolution is a process of cycling death and mutation via natual selection, sexual selection, etc whereby all life is descended from the first life. So death is assumed in the process, as are mass extinctions. The theological problem we run into here is that the Bible states that by one man sin entered into the world and death by sin. It also states that the wages [deserved earnings] of sin is death. How is it earned if simply a natural part of the life cycle of all organisms? How is death the result of man’s sin if death predates both man and sin? Unfortunately, the reason these questions are nonsense is because the Bible specifically identifies Death as the last enemy. An enemy. Not a natural part of life. To make death, the last enemy, part of the creative process of a God who identifies Himself with Life is, I imagine, a special sort of blasphemy. In any case, it assumes that God did not create by fiat, by spoken command, as the Bible relates nor in 6 solar days as it also plainly states in both Genesis and Exodus 20:11 [i.e- the 4th Commandment]

• We attribute global consequences to human sin (”the fall”), but were not those dynamics (death, decay, carnivorism, thorns, earthquakes) present in creation before humans evolved? How does this impact our understanding of the Biblical account?

Did you know that USAmerica has over 600 separate Christian denominations? Each of these movements is testimony to our commitment to doctrinal purity, but they also give evidence to a pervasive problem within the Body of Christ: Our tendency toward division and schism rather than unity when we disagree.

Frankly, that’s the light some Christian pastors see the Creation/Evolution controversy in; they see it as just too divisive so they don’t really give the issue the consideration it deserves. Those who think of Creation as a side issue think that Creationists are make much ado about nothing. Making mountains out of molehills. Brewing hurricanes in a tea kettle. They’ve decided the controversy just isn’t worth it.

Honestly, what pastor wants the center aisle of his church to be the no-man’s land of the latest pew war?

This approach forgets that Christianity itself is divisive. The Gospel is an offense. The Cross is foolishness and a stumbling block. We are divided into darkness and light, sheep and goats, saved and damned. By the Word of Truth.

Famously, David was accused by his brothers of just trying to stir up the people. Goliath daily mocked the armies of God. From the first David heard of it, he was outraged.When his brothers rounded on him for being a troublemaker, he returned with a cutting question: Is there not a cause?”

The Church faces a modern-day Goliath who mocks us to scorn for trusting in the historical, geographical, scientific and numeric accuracy of the revealed Word of an infinite, infallible God. A good number of Christians have deserted the camp of Biblical inerrancy and tried to make the Bible fit the claims of finite, fallible men – so long as those claims are made in the name of science. But science has been hijacked by evolution. Nevertheless, erroneously supposing that evolutionism and long ages have been proven, men of faith judge the revealed inerrant Word of an infallible, infinite God who was there at the beginning by the grasping, often erring word of fallible, finite men who weren’t! They claim to hold the Bible authorative in matters of faith and practice, but hold the opinions of men as their true authority – so long as it calls itself science.

It is our children who suffer for this compromise. While their parents may be able to reconcile the contradictions of chance evolution and intelligent design, they’re a different story. Assured by public school teachers and college professors that science deals with the real world while religion deals with faith, and that evolution is scientific truth, they recognize that chance and design are irreconcilable and so reject religious truth wholesale. They’re dropping out of church at a rate of 70%, many never to return. Their parents compromise the Word of God and pave the way for them to become, as Jesus warned, ”twice the child of hell.”

But I will tell you plainly, the real problem is NOT a few turncoats, even those nearly 12,000 ministers who have signed the pro-evolution Clergy Letter Project. Though many of these Creation compromisers now attack their Christian brethren who hold to a traditional, biblical 6-day Creation, they’re simply more obvious. When David came to visit his brothers and heard the mockings and blasphemies of Goliath, he saw no challenger from the armies of God. No one made a stand for God. They ducked and what? Hoped that Goliath would just go away?!

It is the silence of the moderate majority that allows the compromise of a few pro-evolution ministers to look like they represent all of Christendom. I am convinced they do not.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in his famous Letters from the Birmingham Jail, lamented that it was the White moderate Christian who represented the biggest impediment to racial equality. The moderate’s silence impeded the quest for raciual equality in USAmerica. When the moderate did speak up, he often did so to criticize Dr. King’s activism as too divisive, too troublesome, too controversial. But Dr. King stood up for the biblical truth of racial equality, though none stood with him. Like William Wilberforce, though few stood with him [on the issue of abolition], he eventually changed the world.

Our modern-day Goliath of evolutionism mocks the beginning of God’s Word, undermining it’s truth, authority and the foundational basis of the Gospel. He openly doubts the veracity and intellect of the Apostles, for their Holy Spirit-inspired wrtings affirm both the Creation and the Flood. He is stealing our children from us through tax-payer supported public schools, indoctrinating them in this atheistic worldview.

Will the moderate continue to keep silence? Will the moderate accuse us of stirring up the people? Is there not a cause?

David stood up. Dr. King stood up. Wilberforce made a stand. The rest is history.

You see, the issue is not whether Creation is divisive, but whether it’s worth fighting for. Make YOUR stand! Sign the Creation Letter today and affirm the truth of a 6-day Creation and a world-wide Flood. Tell the world that we can completely trust the Word of God… from the VERY FIRST WORD!

-Sirius Knott

Note: This post originally appeared at CreationLetter.com in February 2009.

Yes, you read that right. Keith Bardwell, justice of the peace for Tangipahoa Parish’s 8th Ward, refused to grant honor a license for an interracial marriage. And apparently his objection and refusal had been fairly well known before this story came out.

Nevermind that this issue was addressed waaaaay back in 1967, wherein the US Supreme Court unanimously decided that “Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State.” [Loving v. Virginia]

He’s decided that he has to do it. For the Children.

That’s right. He’s worried about the children that might be born of such a union and that, in his personal opinion, interracial marriages just don’t last.

Based on what?

The Hammond Daily Star reports him as saying:

““I’m not a racist,” Bardwell said. “I do ceremonies for black couples right here in my house. My main concern is for the children.””

However, his objections is [also from the Hammond Daily Star]:

He said he has discussed the topic with blacks and whites, along with witnessing some interracial marriages. Bardwell said he came to the conclusion that most black society does not readily accept offspring of such relationships, and neither does white society.

“Yet, the children are innocent. They had nothing to do with that,” he said.

In many cases, he said, the grandparents or a relative ends up with the children.

“I don’t do interracial marriages because I don’t want to put children in a situation they didn’t bring on themselves,” Bardwell said. “In my heart, I feel the children will later suffer.”

Bardwell thinks that interracial marriages don’t last; therefor, kids born of such marriages end up with relatives due to divorce; therefor he shouldn’t do interracial marriages. Not only is this illegal and blatantly racist, it’s ignorant.

What studies will he produce to show that interracial marriages don’t work? And how does he go about proving that race was the deciding factor when a good many uniracial marriages also don’t work? Sadly, we have a Divorce culture in USAmerica.

I’m sorry that this man has found a way to justify and excuse his racism. As he’s stated, he does have rights, too. However, under the law and as a representative of the law, he has an obligation not to discriminate against anyone else.

That’s the rub these days: Everyone seems to have rights. Who any longer knows their responsibilites?

He’s stated that if he were ever got in trouble for refusing to perform an interracial ceremony, that he’d resign.

I think he should probably do so.

For a quickprimer on the Biblical Creationist position on Racism and Interracial Marriage, read: http://siriusknotts.wordpress.com/2008/08/21/interracial-marriage/

Personally and as a minister, I think we need to toss the word “race” into the garbage can.  The idea of human races is an evolutionary by-product. The Bible teaches that there is only one human race, born of Adam and Eve.

-Sirius Knott

I’ve recently been posed a very cogent question, one that I get a lot actually:

“How can you say that God created in six solar days when the sun is clearly created on the 4th day???”

I do often use the term “solar day” when I’m refering to Genesis. When some people read Genesis, they impose man’s fallible ideas about millions of years upon the Text and try to fit those long aeons into the days of Genesis. I recognize of course that the sun and the heavenly bodies weren’t formed until Day 4, but I use the term solar day because everyone generally understands that it means a regular 24-hour day.

But where did I get that idea from?

Well, from the context of the passage. Context is very important. I often get commentators who object that a word, usually the word “day” actually, can have many different meanings, so the Genesis days could have been any amount of time – except 6 actual days of course!

In the case of the word “day” we cheerfully admit that it has several meaning depending upon the context. Ken Ham of Answers in Genesis uses the phrase “In my father’s day, it took 10 days to drive across the Australian outback during the day” to illustrate the point that it can mean a period of time, a 24-hour day or even just the daylight portion of the day/night cycle.

But it’s meaning is derived from context. It’s meaning is not determined by all possible meanings or the wishes of the audience, but by the intended meaning of the author.

Interestingly, “yom” the Hebrew word for “day” is used 2301 times throughout the Old Testament. It’s only in Genesis 1 that we question what it really means. Outside of Genesis, it’s meaning is consistent and the rules of context are well-established: Anytime we see the word “day”  and a number [410 times], it means a regular 24-hour [aka solar] day. Anytime we see the words “morning” and “evening” together withOUT the word “day” [38 times], it means a regular solar day. Any time we see either the word “morning” or “evening” with the word “day” [23 times], again, a normal solar day. And whenever we see the word “night” with “day” anywhere else in the Olt Testament [52 times], you guessed it — a 24-hour solar day. But people seem to have trouble applying a consistent rule of application to Genesis because of they suppose science has proven millions of years.

“So much depends on evolution,” claims yearofevolution.org, a website showcasing the University of Pennsylvania and the Penn Museum’s intent to make a year-long celebration of Darwinism. The claim is common to Darwinist polemics, so it’ll be useful to critique the claims of the site.

First, we should ask, What actually depends on evolution?

Well, that depends on what we mean by evolution, doesn’t it? Do we mean small-scale changes within existing species [microevolution], the observable kind of evolution which no one, including Creationists and Intelligent Designists, disputes? Or do we mean large-scale changes of the proposed “molecules to man” sort [macroevolution or Darwinism] which Darwin speculated might occur, but is not demonstrable?

You see, there is a distinction, despite militant Darwinist Eugenie Scott’s purposely deceptive blanket definition of “change through time,” an equivocation tactic typical of those who feelthey must ardently defend macroevolution to prevent “a Divine Foot” from entering the realm of science, even if they have to lie for Darwin. [1] Though some have been suckered in by Gary Hurd’s 2005 assertion that the macro versus micro distinction is merely a Creationist fabrication [2], it was actually first recognised by Darwinists. For example, in 1937 Theodosius Dobzahanshy wrote in Genetics and the Origin of Species: “There is no way toward an understanding of the mechanism of macroevolutionary changes, which require time on a geological scale, other than through a full comprehension of the microevolutionary processes observable within the human lifetime. For this reason we are compelled at the present level of knowledge reluctantly to put a sign of equality between the mechanisms of micro- and macroevolution, and proceeding on this assumption, to push our investigations as far ahead as this working hypothesis will permit.” So much for the “that crazy Creation macro versus micro canard again” straw man.

So what depends on macroevolution or Darwinism?

It seems the Mayan Calandar ends on December 21, 2012 and everyone’s seeing that as a sign of an impending Apocalypse. Well, not everyone. The Mayans were actually looking forward to it as something of a Golden Age per some scholars.

In any case, Christians need not fear this hokey pocus. As Dr G Charles Jackson of Creation Truth Foundation astutely pointed out in his Points of Origins Digest No. 405, even Jesus stated even He didn’t know the day nor hour of His Return, only the Father alone – and certainly no man! [Matthew 24:36] That includes Nostradamus, the Mayans and anybody else who may be predicting a date for the End of Days. In fact, I can confidently state that if a particular sect, movement, religion or person gives you a date for the return of Christ or the End of Days, they’re a cult. Period. Avoid them.

But what are we to make of the Mayan Calendar then? Except to note that it may prove as lucrative for Hollywood fearmongers as the lamentably overblown Y2K [yes, I did know people who'd stockpiled to the ceiling; no,I wasn't one of them], I think it will prove to be nothing of consequence. 

In fact, my wife and I were discussing this and I jokingly suggested that perhaps the end of the calendar doesn’t mean the end of the world so much as its the end of their several millenia calendar, so you’ll need to buy a new one soon, right? 

Every calendar ends, but it’s not the end of the world, y’know.

Sirius Knott